Family ties: Man traces family history 200 years to a slave

Wednesday

Before Rutherford County had a courthouse and 53 years before the Civil War began, a young mulatto woman named Sarah Brooks was a slave in the home of Housan Harrold.

More than 200 years later, Dominique Bess, a Kings Mountain resident, has researched the Brooks family history. With the help of distant relatives, he has been able to connect himself and many others--including tennis legend Arthur Ashe, actress Maria Howell, and the founder of Brooks Chapel United Methodist Church in Polkville--to Sarah, who is Bess' sixth great-grandmother.

Based on accounts of family history passed down through generations, research on Ancestry.com, and court documents, his family has pieced together her story.

Sarah’s mother, Elizabeth Brooks, was a white woman, a former indentured servant who paid for her voyage from Ireland to Maryland with her servitude. While in Baltimore, Elizabeth met a black man. That man became Sarah’s father.

When Elizabeth was arrested for “bastardy”—having a child out of wedlock—he paid her jail fines.

But Sarah’s mother gave her daughter away. When she was 4, Sarah was taken to Rutherford County by Elizabeth’s friends, David and Jane Porter. According to court documents, the Porters didn’t have any surviving children. And according to family history, Elizabeth promised the Porters she would come for her daughter.

She never did.

The Porters gave Sarah to another white family, with the expectation that Sarah would be free once she reached adulthood. That didn’t happen.

By 1808, Sarah had been a slave for 18 years. Then, James Martin found her. He asked Sarah why she chose to work in Harrold's house, in miserable conditions. She replied with the only documented words of hers in existence: "I don't think I have any right."

"So they took it to court because James Martin said that Sarah was free," said Bess. “And Sarah actually won her freedom in court.”

Since it was illegal for blacks to testify against whites in court, Bess said Sarah's white friends, the Porters and the Martins, testified on her behalf.

Tracing black ancestry to a white woman

After winning her freedom, Sarah disappeared from public record, but became the matriarch of a family that spans 223 years of history in both Rutherford and Cleveland counties. One of her descendants founded Brooks Chapel United Methodist Church in Polkville, another would become the first black American tennis player to be ranked No. 1 in the world, and another would own more than 1,000 acres of land near Crowder’s Mountain, some of which remains in the Brooks family today.

Those descendants would also become one of the only free black families in Cleveland County.

Because of their Irish grandmother, Sarah’s five children were very light in complexion, had light-colored eyes and long black hair, Bess said. Many of their descendants were able to pass for white.

“A lot of the Brooks were really light. Some married into white families,” he said.

One story passed down in family folklore is that of Elisha Brooks, a farmer and Sarah’s grandson. When Elisha was kicked by one of his horses, he was taken to the white hospital. Only when his family began to visit him did the hospital realize Elisha was black. According to family history, he was kicked out of the hospital and later died of his injuries.

Bess said the family always knew they had European ancestry of some kind, because of their light complexions. But most African American families can only trace their ancestry to about 1850.

Part of that is because the U.S. Census didn’t identify African Americans by name until 1870.

He said it’s remarkable that a black family can trace its ancestry to the late 1780s and find that they descended from a white woman from Ireland.

“She was a white lady. You wouldn’t think that all her descendants were African Americans,” he said.

'Born free, but to a slave father'

Sarah had five children, one girl and four boys, by a man named Robert, who was a slave.

“All of them were born free but to a slave father,” said Bess, who mentioned that many of his ancestors didn’t get married until slavery had ended.

Sarah’s daughter, Winny, married a slave named John Dunaho. Both are buried at Brooks Chapel in Polkville. Two of their sons fought in the Confederate Army; another son, Daniel, eventually became a pastor and Brooks Memorial Methodist Church in High Point was named in his honor.

Sarah’s son Nathaniel donated the land for Brooks Chapel United Methodist Church in Polkville.

“They were considered white and mulatto,” said Bess. “His children are the ones who passed for white.”

His 1,000 acres of farm and timberland stretched from Crowder’s Mountain to Bessemer City and part of his land is now I-85 and U.S. 74.

It was Jerry who walked 40 miles with money he earned himself to make the final payment for his father Robert's freedom.

Jerry was also the great-grandfather of tennis legend Arthur Ashe, the first and only African American to win the men’s singles at both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, and the first black American to be ranked No. 1 in the world.

Another descendant of Jerry's is Vaughan Whitworth, a Congressional Gold Medal Honoree in 2012 and a member of the Montford Point Marines, the first black Marines.

Maria Howell, an actress who appeared in “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” “The Blind Side," and "The Color Purple,” is also a descendant of Jerry Brooks and a Gastonia native.

A well-remembered story passed down in Bess' family is that of William Isaac Brooks, one of Jerry's 14 children.

According to family history, William was known for being a good swimmer. When two people drowned in a flooded stream, he tried to rescue them. A newspaper clipping from the time shows that the two people died. William retrieved their bodies.

“Because he was black, the newspaper didn’t even mention his name or mention he was a hero,” said Bess. “It was the way things were then.”

‘Write everything down’

Bess said he’d always been interested in his family’s history, after hearing stories passed down from generations. In his junior year at UNC-Charlotte, he decided to write a paper on his ancestry.

“I kept calling my grandmother,” he said. “She told me not to ask her anymore and to write it down. It was my grandmother’s idea to write everything down.”

And he did. He’d always assumed all blacks were slaves, he said, but when he started researching, he found that wasn’t true. His family had been free.

Bess gives much credit for discovering his family’s ancestry to his distant cousin, Thomas Dudley, whom he said did the bulk of the work, including finding the original 1808 court document from Sarah’s trial.

The Rev. Larry Brooks, Lewis Brooks and Gwyn Davis were also instrumental in uncovering his family’s secrets.

Their goal for the future is to discover the connections between his family and the white families they interacted with in Rutherford and Cleveland counties.

For instance, Sarah's grandson, the Rev. Daniel Brooks, was a Confederate soldier in the Civil War who joined along with his white friends, the Lattimores.

Bess said the Clarks, Coopers and Elliotts also knew the Brooks family, and if anyone from those families, or from another family who thinks they could be related to the Brooks, would like to contact him to find out, they can do so at dbess311@gmail.com or by calling 704-884-6993.